Permissive

This morning I saw a piece on Jezebel about how parents in Park Slope, Brooklyn are backing a ban on ice cream trucks at their local park because their kids see the trucks and want ice cream. Then the parents say no because of childhood obesity and stuff and then the children cry and everything is ruined. So the solution that some parents, at least, are agitating for is to ban ice cream sales at the playground.

You should go read the piece. Jezebel's take is that banning ice cream trucks is redonk and that these parents need to man the eff up and deal with the kids' whining and wheedling, that it's a parent's job to "deny them, again and again, until they grow up to be people the rest of us can tolerate being around." I have an affinity for this view, which is expressed in Jezebel's signature style. I mean, yes, just because a child gets mad and cries does not mean that there is some problem needing a solution.

But what I thought as I was reading it, though, was, "Geez, buy them an ice cream." Not every day, and NEVER after a fit has been pitched or whining is underway. But lord, that's the time and place for sweets. It's what I think of as a high-impact treat. Lots of bang for the buck. Spend your sugar allowance on ice cream at the park and not fruit loops for breakfast every single day or some other crap loaded with HFCS.

While I was in my active weight loss mode, I formulated a rule for myself (guided by Michael Pollan's Food Rules, which I highly recommend). I wouldn't eat what I thought of as "meaningless bread." You know, bread eaten for no reason and for no occasion, just gluteny carbs. But at someone's birthday party, I would have a piece of cake. Just make it matter. Make it an honest treat that means something.

And ice cream at the park is making it matter.

What do you think?

The other, deeper aspect of this that troubles me is the idea that it's normal for your kids to totally fall apart when they don't get what they want. I swear, after the age of two, this is not the case. They need to be more resilient than that. Part of the trick of this is that you've taught them that whining will never, never work, but for Matt and me, it's also that they DO get what they want a lot. They don't feel that life is an endless series of no's, which means that when the answer is no, you can point to all the yesses, and they know more yesses are in the future.

When my kid got excited about the ice cream truck and asked for a treat, I would say, "Okay." And make it a big occasion! "Yay, ice cream! Which one are you going to get?" Then, later at the grocery store, I would say, "No, you don't need that free cookie they give out at the bakery. You had ice cream, remember?" End of story. 

I think the word "permissive" has taken on some slightly negative freight. But I guess our parenting style is basically permissive. I mean, we have core principles and values about what we think is important, but we lean toward saying yes a lot of the time. When one of our kids does complain about not getting/doing something, we're like, "Dude. Listen to yourself! You don't have a leg to stand on here."

Look for my forthcoming book, Dude, Listen to Yourself: Tactful and Respectful Communications with Children.

I wonder if some of these crying Park Slope kids feel that they are in a pitched battle with their parents over every indulgence, so every bit of anything they think they want has to be Custer's Last Stand, and both parties are stressed out over it.

I mean, we all grew up asking for candy in the checkout line at the store, right? I don't remember our parents being too bothered about saying no. In fact, TRUE STORY: Once when I was four or five, I asked for a little plastic suitcase of candy at the cash register at Ben Franklin. My dad said no, but I picked one up and opened it anyway. He took it from me, paid for it, and then poured the candy in the garbage outside the store. So you know him as the kind and loving Camp Papa in my comments, but he is also the Pourer-Out of Candy. THAT HAPPENED. 

Ladies, Seriously (A Tennis Post)

I hope you guys won't think I'm mean spirited when I tell you that there is a girl on my tennis team who is a crazy ding dong. Bless her heart. She started out as merely annoying, but she has become so much more.

I mean, I'm going to spare you the details of the low-grade drama that is constitutive of ladies' doubles tennis, drama that's pervasive and constant, like microwave radiation in deep space. So, for example, when my bud T calls me after practice one day to tell me that Gravelly-Voiced pal asked her if she likes to play as my partner, because she heard maybe she didn't, and T was upset, nay, outraged, by this implication and wanted to air it all out and tell me all about it and how she loves to play with me and how Gravelly-Voiced girl is mistaken, I don't really give a crap. I mean, it didn't cause me a moment of, "Well, what if T doesn't want to play with me?" or "Where is this malicious chatter coming from?" Because while I am not laboring under the delusion that everyone thinks I am a great tennis player, I do assume that everyone likes me and wants to be my friend. This could also be a grand illusion, but it's how I move along in this world.

So there is some nitter-nattering of this kind all the time. But everyone is having a good time and improving her game, so it's a good team.

But this woman! You would recognize her as a basic Debbie Downer. Or that's how she struck me when I first met her: nothing is ever right and we're probably all walking straight into some hidden peril. She doesn't live in our neighborhood, and nobody really knows her very well. So okay, she's annoying, but this season, her behaviors and negative talk have gotten worse, and more to the point, they now take up more and more bandwidth in practice.

The way this plays out is that she is so down on herself and her playing, so loudly and constantly down on herself, that it is ABSOLUTELY CRAZY-MAKING. Reader, I don't even know how to tell you. Every shot she misses, she either wants to explain why, or she wants to berate herself, not with a quick, "Um, whoops?" but with an entire monologue that starts with how terrible she is and ends nowhere. It's like playing tennis with Eeyore.

At the beginning of this season, I thought her endless bellyaching was strategic: This is a group practice that we pay a coach to run, and the etiquette of the situation dictates that everyone is entitled to the same smallish amount of the coach's individual attention. But if you moan and bitch like you're actually dying instead of not swinging through on your backhand, the coach will pull you aside for a little private session at the end of practice. The squeaky wheel and all.

But as we've spent more time practicing together, I've come to think that, yes, in some ways she receives positive reinforcement for her behavior, but that there is something clinically wrong with her. A whole big bundle of things. I would say she has anxiety issues? But I know plenty of people dealing with anxiety and they do not bother the shit out of everyone around them.

Okay, so if we fast-forward through my venting, we get to how I was paired with her as partners for our match the week before last. When I saw the line-up, I was fine with it. The hilarious part is that the girl can actually play pretty good tennis. So I thought, okay, this isn't a cross-country road trip together, it's a morning tennis match. Let's play.

Then our team captain sidles up to me in practice and says, "I'm sorry that you're playing with Eeyore. Somebody has to play with her and this week it's you." And I was embarrassed that she even said that, I was embarrassed that she drew me into a situation where I was expected to speak ill of someone, which I would rather not do. (That's what blogging is for.) I don't know, it was awkward. So I just said, brightly, "It's fine! It's great!"

Then, THEN, the next day I was up at the courts before Laura's lesson, and our coach came over to me. She began, "Now Becky, when you play your match this week, you're gonna have to be sort of a psychologist."

Okay, you know you're crazy when the coach is trying to help other people deal with how crazy you are.

She went on to advise me to stay positive and not indulge the girl's constant self-downing, to remind her to focus on the point at hand, etc. The best part was when she said, "I'm sorry, because I know this puts more pressure on you," and Pretty Neighbor, who was standing nearby and who was glued to this exchange, piped up and said, "Oh, Becky doesn't care about that." I laughed because it was true! Honey Badger don't care!

Long story short, Eeyore and I went out to play our match and won the first set, 6-4. Then we lost the next set 4-6. Okay, it was close. We were in good shape and we should have won in the third. One of the girls we were playing against was somebody I beat last year. But my partner was just in a tailspin over the errors she had made. It was crazy. Like, if she were an actress, I would have been like, "Okay, you're hamming it up here. Not believable." At one point, during a changeover, she goes, "I feel like they've gotten in our heads!" And I said, "They're not in my head! Come on!"

I'm not good enough at tennis to overcome that kind of inertial typhoon of pain, and we lost the third set worse than the second.

Then, then, THEN, just last week, she was paired with Pretty Neighbor. Their match did not go well, and PN told me she knew they were doomed even before play started. Standing chatting before warm up, Downer Girl said, "I just hope I have a good match." And then she turned to PN and said, fearfully, "But what if I don't?" PN told me, "I knew right then we were screwed." I mean, "What if I don't?"

So y'all, I feel bad for this person! I also want to stay away from her. I am sorry this post is so long. I just need to process? Just hug me, we don't have to talk.

The other night, on a whim, I thought, "I wonder if there are any books about tennis psychology?" So I googled "tennis psychology." Um, yes, there are books about that. (I'm new to sport, I didn't know sports psychology was a thing, like, at all.) So I ordered a couple of them, not to help Eeyore, because I think her issues are deeper, but to work on my own focus and discipline in match situations.

On the bright side, I have been playing a lot of tennis. I'm kind of on two teams now, did I tell you that? Hilarious. Two practices and two matches a week, plus pick up games, shirts-and-skins style, with the girls in the 'hood. Some of it is sinking in, as I have been winning more. Tiger blood.

xoxo

The Cookie Or The Roar

I have written before about Matt and the kids' habit of having a nightly wrestle. (Actually that post wound up being more about my marriage, but also this other thing.) I never usually see the wrestle directly, but I often witness Laura and Hank dashing through other rooms of the house as part of bizarre errands or challenges. Sometimes they will race into the room where I'm sitting, minding my own business, and kiss me on the cheeks as quickly as possible before running back out singing a song. Stuff like that. I don't know, this is usually the part of the night when I'm ready to ignore them for a while.

Tonight I happened to be in our bedroom putting away laundry, so I got to witness the latest evolution of the wrestle. It's an event called The Cookie Or The Roar. In it, Matt holds out his hands with his fingers spread, having already secretly designated one finger as Cookie and another as Roar. A child ventures forward and points to a finger. If it is the Cookie, "Cookie" is announced, to general gladness. Cookie can be redeemed for a future single vanilla wafer-level cookie, or saved and banked with future Cookies to amass Double Cookie, Triple Cookie, and beyond. This banking of Cookies resulted in Matt bringing each child a whole actual doughnut the other day. They had Quadruple Cookie. I was like, "Oh, sure, Quadruple Cookie, that's a thing." So that's Cookie.

If the child selects Roar, Matt roars. Really loud, or in a really startling way. The children scream in terror. The dog hates this one.

If they select one of the other eight fingers, they have to do a physical challenge. This is what happens most of the time, obviously. And this is what struck me as hilarious. He's got them doing jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, you name it.

And they love it. THEY LOVE IT. Tonight I saw him tell Hank to redo a set of jumping jacks because he didn't use proper form. So Hank did them again and DID THEM BETTER.

I thought about how it's a good thing for kids to have two parents. I spent all day today with the kids, the three of us. It's the first day of their spring break and we had a lovely relaxed time. We slept late, we lay on the trampoline chatting about when they were babies, we went out for sandwiches at lunch, and we went to the pool. Nothing big, but it was nice. I can do fine with them by myself. They're easy, really, and I can meet their needs and more. But Matt thinks of things I would never think of, he sees them in a slightly different way, and I know they get something different from him.

Watching them tonight, I wondered how long Laura and Hank will like this nightly wrestle/calisthenic jamboree. And not just like it, but beg for more? It has been going on for years, so perhaps it will continue to grow into something new as they grow.

Good night from the Matron family. I hope you get the Cookie.
xoxo

Vegas Moments

Hey, it's me, how you been? You look good.

Y'all! My blog is back from her unannounced Blog Spring Break! My blog went to Cancún and shared a hotel room with like six other blogs. My blog's shoulders are now sunburned a rich cordovan color and her hair is done in tiny braids. One night, my blog did, like, ten jello shots, but some other really sweet blogs held her hair back while she vomited in the road outside Señor Frog’s.

But my blog is back now. And to celebrate her return, I'm going to post every day in April. No fooling, every dern day. So come around if you are into that!

When last we spoke, I was off to an academic conference in Las Vegas. If I were awesomer, I would craft a long but piquant narrative for you that captured the whole experience in all of its social and cultural dimensions. There would be knowing references to Jean Baudrillard. We would finish it all feeling smarter. Unfortch, the need to produce such a narrative is the very kind of thing that keeps me from blogging for two weeks. So I'm going to give it to you d-d-d-d digest style. Aw yeah.

Bedscape, bland.

1. We stayed at Harrah's. As a place to sleep and use the toilet, and have the conference sessions, this was totally adequate. However, this is not one of the newer snazzier hotels, and the main floor of the place smells like beery ashtray breath in hell. Seriously, whenever we would descend in the elevator, and the doors would open on the casino floor, we were like, "What is that smell? It makes me think I will never feel joy again."

I don't know if this is a Vegas thing or if the numbers on the doors at Harrah's are particularly hard to read, but at least once a day or night, we had someone at the door thinking our room was their room. The first time this happened, it was 4:20 in the morning, and I awakened to hear pounding on the door. Like, fist pounding, loud. I realized it wasn't going to go away, so I got up and stumbled to the door and looked through the peephole. It was some doofus. I said, "Wrong room, buddy!" and I could see his eyes flick up to the room number in confusion. This happened like four more times over the course of our stay, sometimes during waking hours. And yes, Dad, we always kept our little chain thing latched.

Erika said later that I sounded very butch when I said "wrong room," but I think that's just how I sound at 4:20 in the morning.

I will say that Harrah's is very centrally located on the strip, so there are many directions in which to flee.

2. Harrah's is right across the street from this place, the Forum Shops.

It's a very pretty mall with lots of fancy shops in it. I did not buy anything, but I did help myself to some green lemonade in Ted Baker.

In one of the bathrooms in this pretty mall, Erika and I saw a lady who had detached her hair extensions and was washing them in the sink. Erika observed her drying them with the hand dryer.

Erika and David and I also ate at the Spago in this place. It's right by a version of the Trevi Fountain that is bigger than the real Trevi Fountain, and which is viewable in the round, not built against a wall like the one in Rome. They make a very competent Manhattan at that place. Walking by an homage to the Seven Rivers fountain (normally found in Rome's Piazza Navona), I said that I thought that if he could see it, Bernini would basically approve of all this baroque excess, and David opined that the capitalism part might confuse him.

3. There is no picture to illustrate this, but one afternoon, Erika and I sat out at the pool for a little while, just to chill in between conference sessions. Up above us, maybe on a sixth or seventh floor balcony, a lovely young girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen, pulled up her shirt and started doing a little dance, showing her boobs to the guys standing down at the pool bar. Much hooting and hollering ensued, which encouraged her to keep up the display until her giggling friends pulled her inside. Then she reappeared for a repeat showing.

Erika and I were pained by this. It was painful. Another woman nearby met our eyes and I could tell she felt the same. I think I actually said out loud, "Where is her mama?"

Y'all. If I knew that Laura had done that? I would dig a grave and lie down in it. Just let the cold earth cover me, because I have failed.

Am I being too dramatic? It made such an impression on me that when I got home, I told Laura about it. It seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world to her, like I was describing the actions of Martians, but I just wanted to explicitly introduce the concepts at stake: dignity and valuing one's body, valuing oneself, etc. Okay!

4. The Bellagio decorates their garden room for every season, and it was really pretty.

Bees!

We better scram before that Dutchman finds out we put flowers in his shoes.

5. We ate some pretty good food while we were there. I loosened up from the more abstemious program I'd been following.

Never been to a conference where they gave out candy apples.

One night, Erika and I went to a burger place. Only it was a burger place bearing the name of an acclaimed chef and the burgers were, like, artisanal burgers, made into patties on the thighs of Argentinean virgins. I don't know, they were good. But while we were sitting there, I spied Kathy Griffin walk in. I don't watch her show but I recognized her. And I was all, "Erika! Kathy Griffin is behind you!" And Erika turned around right as Kathy Griffin looked at her so they did the look-at-you-looking-at-me thing. And then she sat behind us and we snapped this picture, all covert like.

That's her with the red-blonde hair. She's quite pretty.

6. While in Vegas, I limited myself to one alcoholic beverage per day, and Erika and I got at least 7.5 hours of sleep a night. I didn't gamble and I didn't shop. Yet I felt like I was engaging in the most hedonistic indulgence, and it was because I had unfettered, focused friend time.

Ah, Venice!

Our panel went great and was very well received. People liked my paper. "I still got it," I thought. But the biggest enjoyment was just having time to catch up with my buds. Over the course of our three nights and four days together, Erika and I got to talk about every aspect of life: health, work, kids, plans, everything. It felt great. Girl Time: It's part of a healthy lifestyle.

This milkshake had Maker's Mark in it. Also part of a healthy lifestyle.

I hope you have enjoyed this out-like-a-lamb weekend. Missed you! Missed your face! Come back and see me TOMORROW!

Picture Some Sort of Thelma & Louise Situation Probably

Tomorrow I am leaving for Las Vegas. My friends Erika and David and I heard that an academic conference we like was going to be there, and we were all, "Oh surely we can come up with SOMETHING to say at that thing, we gots lotsa idears." We proposed a panel, it was accepted, and we are Vegas bound. So really it will probably be like Thelma and Louise, if they had had better educational opportunities, and a gayer, better-dressed Brad Pitt, and instead of driving into the void, we'll write devastatingly witty things in our conference notes. "Oh no she DIDN'T just confuse fabula and syuzhet. Bitch please!"

Don't you hate that you're going to miss that?

The thing is at Harrah's, and we're staying there. I have never been to that hotel, and I'm a little disappointed that it's not one of the places that has indoor sea battles or a chocolate volcano or something. I'm sure we'll find some fun though.

Now, the mom types among you know that it is far from a trivial matter to get away from one's home and children for multiple days, when schooling and activities must continue in one's absence and one's husband must also continue to do productive work. Unfortunately, all of my children's grandparents are living their own lives in other places, and Matt will be on his own. He asked me for a written schedule of everything that needs to happen and everything he needs to remember from Thursday through Sunday morning. I'm including every detail and leaving nothing to chance.

And as I was composing this document, it dawned on me that I'll be gone on Friday, when Hank is supposed to wear a green shirt to school for St. Patrick's Day, and Matt will have to be in charge of that. And also Matt is color blind. So I'm leaving my five year-old baby likely to be dressed by his dad in a red or brown shirt and therefore vulnerable to the pinching that the Korean kids probably get. (They're like, St. What?)

So yes, I am laying out the clothing and writing on the schedule, "Hank PE day, needs tennis shoes. Also wear green! Green robot shirt on top of his chest of drawers!" Luckily I will be here to dress him in the morning because tomorrow is school spirit shirt day and Chick-fil-A lunch day, and I just don't think I could leave two separate memos about special shirts. I'm pretty sure it was that kind of needless system complexity that caused the Challenger explosion.

I am also pre-wrapping two birthday presents that I have pre-bought. Each child has a weekend bday party to attend. And Laura has a science project due on Friday (make a model of a cell out of edible materials? why for the love of Pete?) and she has a swim meet on Saturday afternoon, to which I am leaving directions.

They will have a blast, because he is the fun parent. And he really is.

And I bet I will have some fun too. I will pop in on the SubMat facebook page if something interesting happens or if I need bail money. Go "like" me on there if you might be willing to provide that.

Smacks!
B

How My Optimism Helps Me Overcome Obstacles

You would not perhaps think that listening to twenty two fifth graders hold forth on Optimism, the mandated topic in the county oratory contest, would be a fun way to spend time. But it turned out to be totally freaking adorable. The contest in the schools was sponsored by, yes, the Optimist Club, and Laura wrote a three-minute speech and beat out her class to make it to the school level competition. It was in the library a couple of weeks ago; I went to watch.

Many of the speeches fell into two categories: How My Awesome Optimism Makes Me Awesome; and Here's A Bad Thing That Happened To Someone I Know But I'm Still Alive. Bless them, many of these kids had sad or intense stories to tell about childhood illness or mishap, someone in their family with cancer, or generally scary stuff. One girl had been a bone marrow donor for both of her brothers, who suffered from an x-linked disease.

There was a lot of ten year-old philosophizing and quoting of great minds. Touchstones were Lance Armstrong, Steve Jobs, and Tim Tebow, particularly his "dream destroying" loss to Ol' Miss in 2008 and his pluck and determination in its aftermath. Also Gandhi was mentioned. And, improbably, Cecil B. DeMille.

One child began an illustrative example with, "Take Mother Theresa." (Please!)

I would not kid you about that. This moment had me leaping to compose a note to myself in my iphone. So did the part where the kid said, "And then I thought about night and day, and how truly different they are from each other." I was just eating all of this up, really.

Some children seemed a bit confused as to what optimism is, because Mark Zuckerberg is a lot of things, but I'm not sure that Noted Inspiring Optimist is one of them. Yet he was praised for "having the optimism to become one of the youngest billionaires ever."  Hmm.

So then Laura got up to speak, and she hit all her marks. Her speech did not seem as deep or intense as some of the more tear-jerking ones, but I thought it was well-structured and obviously in her natural voice. She started with the idea that little kids are naturally more optimistic because they imagine fewer possibilities, which I thought was funny, then she talked about her memory of starting kindergarten, then competitive swimming, then my breast cancer treatment.

I didn't have any expectation that she would win, because I had no idea what the judges were really looking for. But she won first place! Nobody was more surprised than she was when they called her name.

After it was over and I thought about it, it was clear to me that she won because she was one of the few who actually said something to analyze the idea of optimism, namely that: Optimism comes easier when you train and prepare (her swimming example); and optimism is something that is shared among people and mutually reinforced and shored up in hard times (my cancer treatment). That's the nutshell, I will not inflict my child's prize-winning optimism speech on you in any greater length. I know you like me but there is a limit!

Anyway, so she got to advance to the County competition, which was last week. Matt's mom Betty came down to attend with Hank and Matt and me, and two of Laura's teachers were there. It was a big event.

It was clear that all of these kids were their school winners. The speeches were all good. Still plenty of inadvertently hilarious moments, but plenty of lovely moments too. In this crowd, there was a greater sense of self-awareness that perhaps, as ten year-olds, their obstacles had not been too steep, but that we all have our struggles, wherever we are. I truly had no expectation that she would win out of this crowd.

But darned if she didn't do it!

First Place!

When they called her name, her mouth fell open, and her teachers whooped. We were so surprised! She was so thrilled, y'all. The next day she took her trophy to school and was on the morning news, and she generally took a victory lap all around the school. Loving it.

The night she won, after we were behind closed doors, Matt and I were like, "Seriously, why do you think she won? I don't know, why do you think?" Like, we're used to her and couldn't necessarily see what the judges saw, maybe. Height advantage? Her teacher had told me that she thought it was that L comes across as very natural and comfortable, like she's always giving speeches. I was like, "You should come to my house, she really IS always giving speeches." I don't know. Anyway, the fifth graders don't advance any farther than the county level, so her oratorical run is over for now. But it was a sweet and wonderful experience, and I mean it when I say, I was really impressed with all of those kids and their willingness to get up there and do that.

I told her, "Laura, I gotta say, you are really bringing it these days." And she is. And yesterday when Hank did something good in karate and got praised, I leaned over to her and whispered, "See? My kids are winners." And she gave me a massive eye roll. It was very advanced, that eye roll.

Butterflies

Tattooed.

My girl! Laura turned 11 over the weekend.

Let us pause to marvel at how, how, I could be in my second decade of motherhood when I'm STILL SO FRESH AND YOUNG. Are you marveling??? Go on and marvel, please. We'll wait.

While I have been doing this and that, not blogging, Laura has been really bringing it. A few weeks ago, she swam in a two-day meet that was her last chance to make a qualifying time for the Georgia Age Group State Championship. I had been thinking of a state time as a good goal for her to work towards, but not one that she would necessarily achieve.

The whole weekend, Laura was dragging with a cold, but she never said she didn't want to swim or ask to get out of competing. On day two of the meet, I thought her best events for qualifying were behind her, and we were just finishing what we'd started. Then, in one of her last races, Laura made the state cut time in the 100 Butterfly! And received that lovely tattoo for her efforts. I was somewhere in the north part of the county, getting my ass kicked in a mixed doubles match, in 35 degree weather, when I got Matt's text from the meet. It just said, "!!!" And I felt so happy. I thought, well, "At least someone in this family is achieving something sporty today!"

In Positive Pushing, Jim Taylor says that you should never let your self-esteem be affected by your child's performance, but sometimes it is hard! To hold yourself separate from it all! Her making that cut time really gave me a lift and I was so proud of her.

I asked her, "How do you like that event, the 100 fly?" And she said, "The 100 fly is one of the worst ways you can spend a minute and a half." Oh, so, fun! I do think it's a hard swim. I'm sure that if tried it, an entire SEAL team would rappel down from the rafters and pull me out of the pool.

That night, Matt and I had a big convo about Laura And Swimming and What Are Our Goals. He said, "Is our goal just for her to swim in the state meet? Or to do really well there? Because she made the cut time by three-tenths of a second, and plenty of kids swam faster."

I said, "Well, I just want her to see that she can swim at that level if she works hard." Plus, the state meet is in town this year, so it's worth going for just one event. And then we discussed a bunch more about effort and achievement and talent and drive and etc, mainly centering on the question, "Does she want it enough?" The jury is still out on that. We did agree that it's a great activity, and right now, it's worth the family effort and time that it takes.

Lots of families I know are having some version of this conversation. Are you?

Then we talked about Hank and his karate, and we both agreed that he will become a professional ninja, no doubt.

She's one of the ones in the yellow caps.

So the state championship meet was just this past weekend, down at Georgia Tech. Part of the point of a big meet for this age group is that they learn to handle themselves on deck with no parent involvement. Whereas, when she was littler and in summer swim league, I would walk her to her lane and literally hold her hand until she stepped up on the block, now it's all up to the kids. They need to manage their warm-ups/warm-downs, talk to the coach, watch the clock, and get to their correct event and lane by themselves.

So I sat up high and watched. I think for people who are more helicopterish than me, this was torment. In fact, I know it was, because of how many times the meet announcer had to talk over the speaker and basically beg parents to stay off the deck. Please, please stay in the stands. So I did. I watched from on high as Laura warmed up, I watched without being able to intervene as another little girl mistakenly swam in Laura's lane in her heat, even though I could see it about to happen, and I watched Laura realize the mistake, alert the timer, sort it out with the officials and her coach, and get placed in another heat. I could see her smiling and joking with the officials, and I was like, "Look at her! She is navigating the system, man. She is on her way in the world."

She told me that one of the officials said to her, "You're only ten? You're really tall!" And she replied, "You should see my dad."

(Oh, and also, please keep your observations to yourself, random person. I added in my head.)

And even though she'd barely squeaked into her qualifying time, she swam the 100 fly three seconds faster than she had two weeks ago. Whoa! I cheered from way up high where she couldn't hear me.

So we got up at 5:30 Saturday morning to head to GA Tech, and she was on deck as required at 6:50, and I was in my chair. Then she swam at noon. Then we had lunch with her team and headed home. It took 8 hours for her to swim that minute and a half. It was a good thing though, a really good thing.

Then, to round out her last day as a ten year-old, she had her BFF spend the night.

Also the child cleaned up, getting enough money from all three of her grandparents to buy herself a Kindle Fire. Speaking of navigating the system!

Kids.

xo
B

Exhalation

Friends! Everything went great with my sister Amy last night. I put a quick update post on her blog before I went to bed. Her surgery didn't take as long as we thought, and the word is that her sentinel lymph node is clear.

Hallelujah!

That was a big question, as a bad node almost certainly would have meant follow-up with chemotherapy. I'm hoping nobody will want to do that now. The surgeon also felt confident that he got the entire mass, though the pathologist will confirm the margins over the next couple of days.

This is good, good, good. I talked to her last night. She was pretty groggy and going to spend the night in the hospital. So the surgeon did his job and I did my job, which was to hang around on social media and also read text messages and drink two glasses of wine. We all had important things to do.

I went to bed feeling much lighter.

Then, we slept in this morning. The kids are on holiday as of today and don't go back until Wednesday. I got to play a doubles match this morning with Pretty Neighbor and some buds, and it was 60 degrees and gorgeous. We were going to go to the mountains, as I'd said, but between it being just the four of us, and the fact that it's going to rain there Saturday and Sunday, I think we'll hang around here. It will be nice to have an unprogrammed weekend, actually. I need to reread our book club book (Serena), and Matt and I have some heavy-duty tax/financial/budget planning to do. I also hope to get some good walks in. I know, I'm pretty boring today.

And that is good.

Love,
Me